The present invention relates to skimming devices used to recover and remove oil and other liquid hydrocarbons and contaminates floating at, i.e., on or near, the surface of a suspending liquid such as water, as for example, to recover and remove oil that has been accidentally spilled from a marine vessel or ruptured pipeline situated in or near a body of water. Typically, due to the relative density of most oils and other liquid hydrocarbons as compared to water, the liquid hydrocarbons will be located at the water surface. More particularly, the present invention relates to skimming devices having rigid skimming surfaces such as discs and drums, wherein the discs and drums are covered with removably attached sorbent material and wherein said sorbent material (a) improves the efficiency of the recovery operation, and (b) can be easily removed and replaced.
One of the advantages of the invention disclosed herein resides in the fact that the sorbent material covering is removably attached to the discs and drums, thereby facilitating removal of said sorbent material in the event that the operator needs or wants to replace used sorbent material with fresh sorbent material, as for example if the material becomes worn, soggy, or otherwise unable to continue to efficiently sorb oil. This advantage is absent from the prior art.
Moreover, environmental regulations generally require that oil recovery equipment must be free of all contaminants prior to being released from the oil recovery site. Compliance with such regulations is comparatively easy and inexpensive for the present invention, as the contaminated material covering the discs and drums can be quickly and easily removed from the discs and drums, allowing such contaminated material to be bagged and discarded. By way of contrast, the only way to clean contaminants from discs in the prior art is to either throw away the discs themselves, or to wash them in place at the recovery site. The fanner alternative is prohibitively expensive. The latter alternative would require so much time and effort, and generate so much contaminated wash water which in turn would have to be treated, as to render the prior art impractical.